


Compensation

by Stratisphyre



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chess Metaphors, I have become that author, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4955581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratisphyre/pseuds/Stratisphyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Compensation (Chess): an imbalanced reciprocal return. For example, trading a knight for a pawn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compensation

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I couldn't get out of my head. I had such _hopes_ for them...

Here’s how it goes in chess:

Pawns cut through initial defenses, useful for opening movements and occasionally capturing important pieces, but only with luck and poor planning from the opposition. Ultimately, few of them move beyond any significance besides sacrifice in the name of strategy. If they last longer than intended, they might rise to power with a carefully executed crossing of the board.

Pawns, Wilson thinks. Insignificant little things. Troublesome cogs in your opponent’s machine, keeping everything running smoothly as long as they can. He can respect the roles pawns play, if not pawns themselves.

You create a strategy based on your own experience and the movements of your opponent. Going in with a set plan in mind, failing to take responses into account, will end with your king seized or overturned. Wilson’s downfall has always been focusing intently on his own movements, and overlooking small but significant movements. It was part of what brought him and Wesley together, part of why they work so beautifully in synch.

Pieces must be sacrificed in the name of victory. Must be. There can be no hesitation, if seizing your opponent’s queen means losing your bishop, you have the funeral and move on.

You have…

You have the funeral…

Vanessa holds his hand, her grip tight enough that he can actually feel it through the cold. It’s anchoring. Behind them, Francis is waiting with crossed arms, quiet and inauspicious, as though he’s paying his own deference through imitation. Wilson doesn’t regret his actions following the discovery of Wesley’s body—Vanessa has taught him never to apologize for his passions, regardless of what form they take—but he appreciates that Wesley taught the other man well enough that such actions didn’t lead to his defection.

When sacrificing pieces, you need to be ruthless. It’s a trade-off. But having one of your own pieces seized without warning? And getting nothing save a pawn back in return? It galls.

Wilson took great pleasure in squeezing the life from the body of his opponent’s pawn. But it doesn’t bring his knight back.

In another cemetery, he knows, they are interring Ben Urich. He has a handful of his people there, watching. Listening. He’ll have the full roster of attendees in his hands later today, to review and see if anyone stands out. Wesley would know if there was anyone of particular interest—would have had all the intimate details Wilson sometimes has trouble keeping track of. He doesn’t know who will be able to replace him in that capacity. Vanessa, he knows, would be exceptional at it. But for obvious reasons he hesitates to let her step onto the board. His opponent is still largely unknown, their strategy unfamiliar, and he’s quickly running out of pieces to put in between him and the oncoming assault. He refuses to put Vanessa in harm’s way more so than she already is.

She’s still so pale.

It’s an appropriately miserable day; the rain has barely let up in the scant moments between the walk from the funeral home to the memorial where they will be placing Wesley’s ashes. Wilson sat through the cremation, staring at the box as it slid into the furnace, wishing he’d caught a glimpse of flame before the door had snapped shut.

Urich is being placed in the ground. Let his body rot. Wesley will not suffer that last indignity.

Vanessa leans against him, both a comfort and a necessity as she recovers her strength. It’s a reminder that despite everything, she’s already on the board. Stepped into play practically from the moment she accepted his invitation to dinner—the second one—and brought a gun along. He admired her caution, and like all other feelings of admiration he’s had for her, it’s metamorphosized into something deeper and richer. Wesley, he knows, had offered to take her to the shooting range to allow her time to build comfort with the weight of a gun in her hands. They never had time.

Wesley was not a religious man. Neither is Wilson. There’s no priest reciting Latin over his remains, just a respectful gentleman dressed in sombre greys placing the urn into a vault-like stretch of marble, the stone promising to keep him safe.

A plaque will be hung—a pittance, name and dates hardly enough to elucidate all the things Wesley did in his lifetime. All the things he did for Wilson.

The sombre funerary director leaves, and Wilson turns to his men.

“Leave.”

Except for Francis, they all obey. Francis, it seems, is made of sterner stuff. Wilson is of a mind to place him on Vanessa’s protection detail moving forward.

He releases Vanessa’s hand and moves to stand in front of the block of stone now protecting his friend. His friend. The best and only friend he’s ever had. He tips forward and places his forehead against the smooth, cold marble.

He’s already made his promises; spoke them into Wesley’s bloodied shirt. Promises to avenge him. To make his sacrifice meaningful. To drink his favourite wine every year on his birthday. He has no more promises to make, will not make any he cannot keep. All he can do is pour his grief into the stone, and hope Wesley knows everything Wilson was never able to say to him.

Vanessa appears once again at his elbow, and places her hand next to his face on the block. She speaks in quick Italian, the words unfamiliar but the tone so terribly, terribly bereft. They would have come to love each other, Wilson knows. Perhaps not passionately—not like Wilson loves Vanessa—but with tender and deepening admiration. They would have laughed over Wilson’s inability to pick out the different notes in a glass of Côtes du Rhône, and gone out to enjoy cuisines Wilson is not fond of; eaten rich curries and returned to him with the scent of cumin still clinging to their skin. Eventually, he thinks, Vanessa would have murmured words of reassurance to both of them and lured them to bed, and they would build upon the foundation already so strong. Vanessa is a sculptor. A creator. She would find ways to make them more than they were.

When he pulls back, his eyes are dry.

He envelops Vanessa’s hand in his and allows her to lead him away, back towards the car.

Pieces lie to either side of the board. His black knight is gone. His queen is waiting only for the right moment of inspiration to move forward. She will become a force to reckon with, no matter how he wishes he could be the sort of man who plays a game other than chess that he could keep her safe in perpetuity.

He helps her into the car and casts a last look back at the memorial.

An umbrella snaps into place over his head seconds before it begins to rain again.

“Thank you, Francis,” he mutters.

“Sir.”

He climbs into his seat and closes the door.


End file.
